FACTSHEET NHS Drug Expenditure – Top 10 When the NHS was launched in 1948 it had a budget of £437million (roughly £9billion at today’s value). In 2008/9 it received over 10 times that amount (more than £100billion). This equates to an average rise in spending over the full 60-year period of about 4% a year once inflation has been taken into account. However, in recent years investm